The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was one book i picked up because i had seen the movie minus the end of the movie and i quiet liked the movie of whatever i had seen and wanted to know where it finally went.


The book ended up being a simple read. It's from Bruno's point of view, the child who is oblivious of holocaust and the fact that his father served the Fury (Hitler). He had his own point of view to everything happening around him. Not understanding the seriousness of what was going on around him, He was happy in his idea of the world being perfect. He had to move with his family to Poland due to an assignment his father was put onto and that's where he meets his new friend on the other side of the FENCE Shmuel. Bruno wants to become an explorer when he grows up and since in this new place he does not have much to explore within the house he ends up venturing outside and begins a journey with Shmuel. While Bruno is his age and is innocent and unaware of everything going around him, Shmuel is that much more grown up after having seen the various atrocities and life changing events as part of a Jewish Family. Ironically they both share the same date of birth but still aged so differently.


From then on the book is about their relationship, about things that Bruno discovers but never understands and somehow the way the book ended completely took me by surprise and since i had not seen the end of the movie i was no where near expecting it. it shocked me, made me sad and wished it would end some other way but in the end when i think about it I guess the story ended just perfectly right. Any more than this i would give away the story :)


The movie also ended up coming again on one of the English movie channels last week after i was done with the book and so it was perfect timing and i have managed to complete both the book and the movie perfectly in sync.

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